Zimbabwe Saints look into the future

THE recently constituted Zimbabwe Saints executive led by Tawanda Ruzive is already looking into the future with plans to establish a village on adjacent land to their Queens Park East Clubhouse.

Ruzive said they want to be a futuristic executive which thinks outside football. He said the idea is to turn the club into a viable commercial entity able to stand on its own through investing in existing opportunities.

“The club legacy is bankable, it just needs conversion to commercial use. In this dynamic environment and times it is key to think beyond getting money through the sale of players and gate takings, there must be innovative ways to raise revenue to sustain the football dream,” said Ruxzive.

Ruzive was appointed by the board of trustees as chairman on Saturday replacing Lloyd Munhanga who served a year and is credited with bringing near normalcy to the Saints family whose team ran the whole of 2024 without hassles.

In the past, the club has run into trouble with Zifa and its players when it comes to money issues.
Ruzive said the club has so much land at its disposal and that they intend to come up with a Zimbabwe Saints Village to house residential facilities, a wellness centre and a shopping complex.

He said their intention as an executive is to see the glory days return to the club.

“Saints should not belong to history, it should be in the present and we laid a foundation last year by having a flawless season in which we were among the top contenders for the league title. We learnt so much from that and one big lesson was that with unity you can go far.

“There is unity at the club now. The elders have found each other, they have given us the mandate and blessings to run the club to the best of our abilities to turn Zimbabwe Saints around,” said Ruzive.

Ruzive said one critical aspect about Zimbabwe Saints was the coming together of feuding camps within the family.

“We are back here, the second year running, we have been given the mandate to run Zimbabwe Saints, last year, we pushed to finish all the games under the chairmanship of Lloyd Munhanga, where I was his deputy, the elders are tired of fights, we are now united, we are now one at Zimbabwe Saints, elders have decided to come together, they are tired of fights, support is something else,” said Ruzive.

He said they will continue with their thrust of finding sustainable means of driving their ideas towards re-asserting Chikwata as a big football brand.

He said while investing in real estate sounds like “sweet talk” the club has ready investors to move in and make the dream come true.